Don't Look Now (17 page)

Soon.

PARIS WANTED MELISSA
to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. But, like all young girls of her age (almost twelve) and delicate position (child of divorce), Paris knew that she lived for the day her parents would come to their senses and realize that they just couldn’t live without each other, that they had made a huge and terrible mistake and that from there on in, the divorce would be over and every Easter and Christmas and Halloween and Thanksgiving and birthday would be spent together, cross-legged, in their pajamas, on the living-room floor, like families are supposed to. And they’d take a lot of pictures and laugh themselves silly at something Daddy did. And they’d have their old house back.

Jack and Beth and Melissa Paris.

Maybe a brother for her to pick on.

But until then, if she had to put up with the Dr Bills of this world, Paris hoped she would warm to the women her father brought around too.

Paris swung into a parking-space and stepped out of the car, straightening the front of his brand-new sweater. His casual-date sweater. One hundred and twenty bucks he didn’t have. He started anxiously toward the door to the theater.

‘Wait for me, Dad,’ Melissa said.

She called him ‘Dad’. It sounded so
teenaged
to him. He was counting on ‘Daddy’ for at least a few more years. ‘Sorry.’

They grabbed each other’s hands, instinctively, as they had in every parking-lot since Melissa had taken her first rambling steps out of the stroller. Paris wondered if his daughter was embarrassed yet. Most pre-teenagers would rather be eaten by sharks than even be
seen
with their parents, let alone
touch
them.

But neither of them let go.

Not yet.

At least three times during the movie there was some kind of sexual reference that made Paris squirm. He couldn’t believe what was passing for PG-13 these days. He’d picked the movie because the reviews said it was okay for twelve and up, but every ten minutes or so there was some kind of sex thing.

He was dying.

To make him even more uncomfortable, each of those times, as if on cue, Melissa and Diana glanced at each other and giggled. They seemed to be sharing ‘girl’ moments, and the thought both scared and intrigued him. He wanted Melissa to like Diana, but he didn’t want to feel excluded.

Later, as they sat in the Food Court finishing their Cinnabon pastries, Paris couldn’t get a word in edgewise. But it wasn’t as if he had anything to contribute anyway. The talk between Diana and Melissa ricocheted from boys to clothes to music to boys to school to boys to movies to martial arts to
colleges
. None of the topics were a part of Paris’s knowledge base. Except college, perhaps. When he joined the force nearly eighteen years earlier, he had been one of only a handful of four-year college graduates – most of the recruits then had high-school or two-year degrees, many coming out of the military.

But Missy? College? That was still years and years and years away.

Please God, let it be years away, Paris thought.

He watched the two of them chatter away as he sipped his coffee, and wondered if he was doing the right thing.

When he heard them making a tentative date for the Home and Flower Show in a few weeks’ time – plans that didn’t seem to include him – Paris almost said something.

But, for reasons unknown to him, at least at that moment, he kept silent.

A swath of early hyacinth bordered Shaker Square: a soft, lilac quilt straining for the sun. The air was thick with the fragrance.

Beth sat at one of the dozen or so tables on the patio in front of the Yours Truly Café on the Square, scanning a
USA Today
, nursing a cappuccino. She wore sunglasses with burgundy frames and lipstick that matched.

‘So how was the movie?’ Beth asked, holding out her hands to Melissa but directing a concerned look at the bandage on Paris’s cheek.

Missy ran across the sidewalk and gave her a hug. ‘It was good.’ She sat down. ‘Daddy got a little embarrassed at some of the sex stuff, but otherwise it was okay. We had Cinnabons.’

Paris looked at Beth, shrugging his shoulders. How had Missy known that he was embarrassed?
God
, he was an open book.

He sat down across from Beth. ‘You look really nice,’ he said.

‘Why thank you, Patrolman Paris,’ Beth replied. She had called him ‘patrolman’ when they were courting. It was a long-shelved term of endearment that, from the look on Beth’s face, had just slipped out.

Missy, having witnessed the exchange with a look of measured hope, slipped a five-dollar bill off the table and skipped over to the pharmacy.

‘What happened to your face, Jack?’

Paris fingered the gauze. ‘Bad guy threw a cigarette machine at me.’

Beth shook her head, remembering living with it day in and day out. ‘Stitches?’

‘Nope,’ Paris said. ‘Not this time.’ He snapped off a corner of her raspberry scone. ‘So how’s, uh,
business
?’ It sounded so strange when he said it out loud, but he was determined to change the subject.

‘Business,’ Beth replied, ‘is
fantastic
.’ She had gotten her real-estate license the year she met Jack Paris, but had put it on hold when Melissa came along. In the time they had been separated Beth had gone back to work and risen to the number-two slot at Hallsted Davidson, Cleveland’s largest realtor. ‘Closed on a house Friday in Rocky River. Iranian engineer and his wife.
Cash
, Jack. Can you believe it?’

He couldn’t. ‘I can,’ he said. ‘Who can resist you?’

They went quiet, looking around the square, feeling the sun on their faces, sensing the impending change of seasons in the air. When Jack looked back at Beth, she was smiling at him.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Right.’

Beth caved in with no further prodding. ‘I saw you the other night, you know.’

‘
What
?’ The words sounded like another language for a moment. He felt oddly violated but, ever the law enforcement professional, managed to calmly ask the next logical question. ‘Where?’

‘The bar in the Embassy Suites in Beachwood.’

‘You
saw
me?’ He really hoped she wasn’t talking about his tackling of Danny Lawrence.

‘Uh-huh.’

It was that playfully accusatory tone that only two people with a deep sexual history could recognize in each other. She even sounded a little jealous.

Paris smiled, felt himself redden a bit. ‘What was I doing?’ He crossed mental fingers.

‘Forget
doing
. Let’s talk about what you were
wearing
.’

Tommy’s jacket, Paris thought. Here we go. ‘What about it?’

‘You looked really handsome.’

‘I did?’

‘Oh,
please
,’ Beth said. ‘You had to know that you looked good. It’s just that I don’t remember you ever looking so
GQ
when we were married.’

Paris debated about whether or not he should tell her that he was undercover. Seeing as Beth hadn’t brought up the task-force, neither would he.

‘So how’d you do with that blonde?’ she asked.

Paris was stunned. It was one thing to be divorced and not know what your ex was up to. But here she was asking about his sex life. Something was definitely afoot. He felt a hopeful stirring deep inside.

‘How’d I
do
?’ Paris replied, thinking about Andrea Heller, still uncertain what game the woman had been playing. ‘Not really my type.’

Then it dawned on him that he had a big, fat, nosy, diversionary, yeah-we’re-unbridled-but-what’s-up-with-this-shit question of his own. ‘And what brought
you
to the Impulse Lounge, if I may be so bold as to inquire?’

Beth smiled. ‘Just stopped in for a drink. Business.’

‘So we’re doing business in hotel bars now, are we?’

‘I have to go where the
clients
are, Jack,’ she said. ‘Just like you have to go where the bad guys are.’

‘Okay.’

‘Get it, big guy?’

‘Touché, already.’

Beth stirred her coffee, even though the cup was almost empty. She put down the spoon, took a few more moments.

‘You know, Missy’s going to tell me all about her,’ she finally said.

‘Who?’

‘The one you bought the new sweater for. The one you took to the movies today.’

‘Really?’

‘
Oh
yeah,’ Beth said. ‘Girl code and all.’

‘Is that right?’ Paris hoped she was just kidding. He didn’t ever want to do battle for Melissa’s loyalty.

‘So why don’t
you
tell me about her?’

Paris gave Beth a basic description of Diana, down-playing Diana’s looks. He still knew what he was doing, it seemed.

‘Is it serious?’

‘I don’t know. How are you supposed to know?’

‘Well, you just left her, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you still thinking about her?’

Paris found that he was. He told the truth.

‘Then it’s serious,’ Beth said with what Paris read as a forced smile. She
was
a little jealous, after all.

‘Well, it looks like you’re going to get a chance to check her out yourself. She and Missy made plans to go to the Home and Flower Show. Without me, I think.’

‘I’ll be gentle with her, Jack. I promise. I won’t tell her how you use toothpicks and leave them lying around the house.’

‘I never did that.’

‘Or how you can’t light a barbecue to save your life.’

‘Who can’t?’

‘Or how you’ll wear a pair of sweatpants until they drag themselves to the washer.’

‘Hey. I’m just doing my part to save water.’

‘But I appreciate the mini-profile. Every little bit helps. The serious stuff, though – like how she
really
looks – I’ll hear that in about thirty seconds.’

‘From Missy?’

‘Yep,’ Beth said as she arose from the table and smoothed her skirt. ‘We’ll be gossiping like fishwives before we hit the lobby. I’ll get the lowdown on what she wore, how much jewelry and make-up she had on, if she colors her hair. Standard dossier stuff.’

Paris hung his head, clearly outgunned.

‘You can’t escape the scrutiny of two nosy women,’ Beth added. ‘Don’t even try.’

‘She doesn’t tell me all that much about Dr Bill, you know.’

‘I rest my case.’

Paris swung his legs out to the side, and when he stood up he found himself inches from Beth’s face.

‘Do you really have to go?’ he asked.

Beth nodded. ‘Got some work to do. I’ll talk to you next week.’

As she leaned forward Paris turned his cheek, as was their custom. Instead, this time, she turned his head and kissed him gently, soulfully, on the lips, the first time in more than two years.

‘See you,’ she said, and walked toward the pharmacy.

Jack Paris could only stand mute.

SHE WAS ASHAMED
of herself. She knew it was wrong. It had haunted her all weekend and she was
going
to do something about it in very short order.

But, Samantha had to admit, there was something about the whole matter that was kind of exciting, too. Sexy, in a perverted kind of way.

Morbidly
fascinating.

Yet when the policeman came into the store that day, Samantha looked at him and just
knew
what he wanted, what he was going to ask about. It all made sense somehow, although she really didn’t want to believe in the sense that it made. The rinses, the Irish walking-hat, the mustache. The sketch she had seen in the
Plain Dealer
didn’t show much of the man’s face, but it was enough. She would have known him from behind.

Because for more than a year, in her dreams, she had touched every part of the man’s face – had kissed his forehead, his lips, the small, almost-cleft in his chin. In her dreams she looked like a young Michelle Pfeiffer, soft blond hair cast seductively over one eye, pinning the object of her desires helplessly to the bed.

Her Mr Faroh. Or Farrow. Or Pharaoh. She didn’t know how he spelled it.

When the policeman asked Mr Hendershott about the mustache, though, Samantha knew that she would have to tell the truth. And soon. As much as she would hate to have anything happen to him, there were all those other women to think about.

But how could it be? How could her Mr Faroh be the man who killed all those women? No. His eyes were
kind
. Cultured. He was an actor, for heaven’s sake. An
artiste
.

She knew that sooner or later the police were going to catch this killer, and if they found out that he got his phony mustache for free at Allied Salon Products …

Something would most assuredly happen, Samantha thought. Something bad.

She picked up the phone, looked at it, as if expecting it to dial itself, then replaced it on its cradle. All for the fiftieth time. She stroked her tomcat, Giacomo, debating.

But it wasn’t
really
a debate at all. Because, who was she kidding? Did she really think that a man like her Mr Faroh would ever call her? Would ever date a woman like her? With her plain face and mousy hair and flat chest and knobby knees and crooked front tooth.

Fat chance, Sammy, she thought. The only reason he wanted your name was because you had to be so stupid as to give him that mustache. And then, for him, there was no turning back. He wanted to know where you lived.
Had
to know. Just in case.

He’s a clever one, that Mr Faroh.

She ran a tub, scorchingly hot, dropped her robe to the floor. She stared at herself for a few resolute moments in the bathroom mirror: droopy and lined and puffy in the harsh light thrown by the single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Thirty-seven, Sammy. Thirty-eight in three days.

She settled into the steaming tub, coming alive, feeling rejuvenated and aroused, hoping that this would be the very last time she would ever fantasize about him.

She grabbed the worn, plastic shampoo bottle and closed her eyes.

‘
Hi, this is Detective John Paris. Please leave your message after the tone. If this is a police emergency, hang up and dial 911
.’